Well, Kind of Counting Down...

The gun goes off for St. Malachi two weeks from Saturday, and I have little to report other than I’m recovering from the flu (believe it or not, I’ve found my way into sickland again!) and I’m pumped for thawing temperatures in the coming days.

In other news… shortly after I posted my Top 7 yesterday, Neil lamented that there just weren’t seven interesting things to write about him. I begged to differ.

So, in honor of my dreamboat, here are the Top 7 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Neil….

1. My boy’s wicked smaht.
   Neil can add, multiply, percentagify, derivate, double, triple, flip and find the limit of a gazillion numbers in a single bound, Will Hunting style. I sacrificed that part of my brain; I don’t know how he does it.
   
   
2. In fact, Neil’s multilingual, in a way.
   Believe it: Neil could probably carry on an entire month’s worth of conversations in movie quotes alone. And while I often spend 5-10 minutes staring blankly at him mid-quote, he still loves me until I figure out what on earth he’s saying.
   
   
3. But he was supposed to be the next Joe Montana’s next Jerry Rice.
   Jackson Township legend has it that Neil and his friend Jon were stellar childhood football players. Jon could throw for miles; Neil could catch anything thrown in his zip code. Then puberty hit. Neil’s career, however, didn’t end before he had the opportunity to be laid out by Mike Doss, who has since won championships with Ohio State and the Indianapolis Colts.
   
   
4. No one told his feet.
   The average American man wears a size 9-10 shoe; Neil wears sizes 13-14. That puts him in the ranks of LeBron James (size 15), Dwayne Wade (size 14.5) and Peyton Manning (size 14). While he’s not quite Shaq (size 22G), Neil is at least 2.5 sizes larger than Boomer the Blue Lion, the Indiana Pacers’ mascot.
   
   
5. Neil is still a football champion.
   Fantasy football, that is. Neil didn’t make it to the big field, but he did hoist the big trophy at the end of last season when he won the MFFL Super Bowl. So, he’s still kind of like Jerry Rice. Instead of doing sprints uphill wearing 20-pound ankle weights on each leg, Neil spends the off-season making player-stat spreadsheets, completing mock fantasy drafts and advising the fantasy boards.
   
   
6. A Vegas champ, he is not.
   Poker, craps, roulette, blackjack, nickel slots, coin toss… you name the gamble and Neil will lose it. In fact, he recently co-organized a poker tournament and opened with an all-in bet on three kings/two aces. Only to lose to three aces/two kings. Lucky for us, he knows his karma and values compounding interest.
   
   
7. He fights bears instead.
   That’s right. They’re Central Park bears, too. His skills didn't help me on that one run through the park, but Neil makes me laugh until I cry. On a regular basis.
   

And all those laughs will have to help my cardio on that final hill at St. Malachi, where Neil and my mom will surely be waiting on March 15 with bratwurst from the West Side Market and the loudest cheers in the crowd.

Let's just say that this year, I'll need it! I'm pretty excited, however: I believe I have lured several runners who did not run with us (I ran St. Malachi with my step-father, Philip) last year. And if the spirit of races isn't the more, the merrier, then I don't know what it is.

While I don't think I've convinced Neil to race just yet, he should be using those destined-for-running feet of his to outrun me in a race one of these days. You can only stave off peer pressure and bribes for so long, sir...